Everybody loves Spider-Man. In the list of all time highest-grossing media franchises, he sits just outside the top ten—below the likes Mario, Hello Kitty, and Pokémon. Last year’s highest grossing movie was Spider-Man: No Way Home, which made nearly four times as much as its second place competition (another MCU venture, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings). My five-year-old nephew (love ya bud <3 ) loves Spider-Man, having only seen him in cardboard learn-to-read books. Hell, I was an edgy DC Comics kid all throughout high school and even I dabbled in liking Spider-Man.
So what happens when we all stop liking Spider-Man?
That thought seemed ridiculous after the surprise hit of Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Man (2002), and impossible after his 2004 follow-up Spider-Man 2, generally considered the gold-standard of superhero movies. Then came 2007’s Spider-Man 3. Critically panned, over-bloated with villains, and unabashedly silly, it was a train wreck that led Sony to completely reboot the series just five years later. Compared with the paradigm-changing combo of The Dark Knight and Iron Man which would release just a year later, Spider-Man 3 crumbled into public ridicule and critical revulsion.1
But what if it’s actually good?
Definitely not great, but good. This past weekend my partner and I had an impromptu marathon of Raimi’s trilogy. Viewed together, these three films absolutely form a successful through line — not the failed trilogy that it’s been remembered as. Before anyone stops reading — yes, there are big problems in Spider-Man 3. The half-assed inclusion of Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) is awkward at best and grating at worst.2 The plot is driven by a cascade of pure coincidence rather than any character decision. The Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) being involved in Uncle Ben’s murder only cheapens the original. Compared to the previous two entries, Spider-Man 3 has a much sillier tone – giving way to comedy of errors scenes and full blown musical acts. It’s understandable that an audience that paid to see Spider-Man duke it out with Venom would be disappointed when a large chunk of this movie is dedicated to Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) doing the Saturday Night Fever walk down NYC’s Garment District.
For those uninitiated, Spider-Man 3 follows Peter Parker at the height of his superhero stardom, but on the rocks with his girlfriend Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) and being hunted by his former best friend Harry Osborn (James Franco). As his personal life becomes more frayed, his suit becomes infected with the Venom symbiote — an alien parasite that enhances its hosts' negative traits. These “negative traits” prove to be the double-edged sword plunged into the heart of the film. Peter Parker is a capital D dweeb, which means his idea of a bad boy is very far from the actual thing. He slides his neat hair into greasy black bangs. He shoots off quips like “dig this” and calls people “daddio.” He eats a whole plate of cookies then slyly asks the neighbor girl to bring him more. This slick performance peaks with a genuinely enthralling dance number that sees Peter commandeering a jazz club piano and dancing across the room like Gene Kelly. It’s clear that audiences (and myself at the time) took this at face value — unsure if the movie thought this was cool, or if it was in on the joke. Several years removed, it's clear how much fun Raimi and the cast are having here at Peter’s expense, cranking Raimi’s trademark gonzo camera work and slapstick humor to eleven. In comparison, any scene with Venom feels sluggish and boring, seemingly left to a second unit director by a bored Sam Raimi.
This focus on Peter’s emotional state isn’t so surprising when paired with the other two films of the trilogy. While the first two films have much more cohesive and enthralling Spider-Man set pieces and villains, Raimi’s attention has always squarely been on the love triangle at the heart of the trilogy: Peter, Mary Jane, and Harry. It’s been noted before how old the three leads were when the trilogy began, with Tobey Maguire starring as a twenty-six-year-old high schooler, but that age actually combines with the aesthetic of the era to create a Gossip Girl or The O.C. level of teenage melodrama. From his inception, Spider-Man’s main selling points as a comic book character were the interpersonal conflicts and relationships he faces outside of the mask – and how his role as a superhero affects everyone around him. Clearly that’s what Raimi found so interesting as a concept because all of the impactful scenes here are focused on the love triangle. Whether it’s Harry and Mary Jane dancing in the kitchen making an omelet, or even the so-silly-it-works amnesia plot between Harry and Peter, the scenes grounded in the characters’ choices and relationships shine compared to the blandness of the superhero plotline.
Spoilers for No Way Home below.
Besides, if people want to give this movie guff for villain bloat and nonsensical storytelling, they may just want to look back to the highest grossing film of last year. Spider-Man: No Way Home’s plot is so sweaty it may as well be in a sauna. Are you going to look me in the eyes and say that Peter Parker convincing Doctor Strange to cast a world-spanning amnesia spell in order for him to get into MIT is less nonsensical than anything that happens in Spider-Man 3? No Way Home carries itself with a lot of gravitas, even though all its emotional stakes were developed and swiped from other movies. Sure, Tobey sliding into a jazz-step so hard that it blows back a woman’s hair is silly — but at least it created something new for itself.
Spider-Man 3 is available to stream on Peacock.
Special thanks to Austin Smoldt-Sáenz, Elena Bruess, Joshua De Lanoit, and Max Seifert.
With the past fourteen years of grimdark storytelling and cinematic universes, it still boggles the mind to consider how influential these two movies are.
Famously, toy-magnate and producer Avi Arad forced Sam Raimi to include Venom in the film. While the black suit goes well with the identity crisis theme of the story, it’s still clear as day how shoehorned in the character feels.